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Ask Slashdot: How Would You Stop a Debt Collection Scam From Targeting You?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm currently being targeted by an overseas debt collection scam. My landline rings every 10-15 minutes all day every day. I considered getting a blacklisting device to block the incoming calls, but the call center spoofs a different number on my caller ID each time, and it's gotten to the point where I've just unplugged the phones. I'm already on the Do No Call Registry and have filed a complaint with the FTC. Aside from ditching my landline, changing my number, and/or blowing a whistle into the receiver anytime I actually pick up, are there any real solutions out there? Has anybody had luck with a blacklisting device?"
...just change your number. I know you said you're looking for alternatives, but, if you have your phone unplugged already, then you're not able to receive calls. Unless you need to call out and have your number recognized, it might just be easier to change it. I'm not sure what sort of device will be able to blacklist random numbers without missing some calls that you actually want to receive.
Setting your answering machine to 6 rings seems to work for us. they usually stop after the 4th ring and flag the number as dead since they assume everybody has an answering machine.
Another option is to use a thrid party call screener like nomorobo or Google Voice, but I've never tried those so YMMV.
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Landlines do not normally pay to receive calls in the USA. Only cell phones and toll free numbers pay to receive calls.
I really shouldn't have used someone else's email address for this account.
For purposes of this story, a landline is a phone shared by all residents of a single-family dwelling. In the United States, landlines offered unlimited minutes to local and toll-free numbers long before cell phones did.
Normally I dump everyone else to voicemail, but they could still tie up your landline and fill up your voicemail box. If they're robodialing you, you could drop anyone not on a whitelist into a voice menu system that requires a couple of button presses that requires a couple of button presses to get to voice mail, and disconnect them after 10 or 15 seconds if they don't press a button.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You don't need a device, just play the disconnect tone. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/IC_SIT.ogg
Pardon, you actually want the intercept, not no circuit, tone :)
Plug in a fax machine. If they're using anything decent it will detect the fax signal and remove you from the calling.
A good idea in theory, but not in practice. They don't remove your number when detecting a fax machine at first. It takes multiple attempts; as you said, if they're using anything decent... then they know you're a residential line, and if they have no other phone number, it'll typically assume it's a dual-purpose line and keep you on the list.
These robo-dialers are listening for particular frequencies that are in the human vocal range -- that's why when you pick up and say hello there's a slight pause. That's because it is routing it to a person... they know that, say, only 1 in 50 will pickup, so they make 50 calls whenever someone becomes available.. and route the 1 that answers to the available rep.
Hanging a fax machine off the line will keep it from going to a person, but it won't get you dropped from the list; not if it's a residential line. now if it's your work phone... it'll probably do the job quite nicely.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Are you so sure its a scam? Are you sure you were the one being scammed? That sounds like an awful lot of persistence and effort for some confidence man to go thru.
It all depends on if these are real phone calls or robocalls.
Since this is originating from overseas I'm not sure there is anything that even law enforcement or the courts can do without engaging an overseas attorney and handling it though the country of origin (though overseas laws can be weird sometimes, scams like that might not even be illegal there).
Technical methods all depend on how many people normally call the affected household. There USED to be call screening devices that an inbound caller had to punch in a four digit code before the phone would even ring, but I haven't seen those for years. I myself just use an old fashioned answering machine on my landline and if the party on the other end does not identify themselves I just don't bother answering. But I have very few people that actually use the landline phone number anymore.
I have a portable phone/answering matching on landline with me DSL bundle. I kept getting this call from India about credit card problems even though I dont own a credit card, my credit is sooooo bad I destroyed it when I was 18 and got sued by banks which I never showed up or paid and since I own no assets they wasted money suing... Now I'm in my 40s
Anyhow the trick to stop the shit India calls coming in 4 and 5 times per day was sadly be as offensive and racist and vile and shocking as possible, become a Chan kid as if they od'd on Ritalin hehe
I had some chick get so mad she was screaming at me in a foreign language, the a supervisor took over her call and acted as ic was going to apologize, so I blasted him with racist to sexual to US outsourcing call centers so they can make 50 cent an hour blah blah. He got to yelling in his own language, I kept having fun looking up how to give death threats and rape daughters in their language. The line goes dead ....
Its now been a year and 2 months and my phone has not range once except for my family and occasional doc appt reminder
Go nuts and go the sicker the better, it works and you'll enjoy the cathartic moment of destroying them to the point they start screaming some foreign gibberish while you laugh and know them dumbasses won't call you ever again.
Or if you want, on fourth ring play SIT tones. Some of the robo-dialers recognize that as number out of service too.
If you use Google Voice you can set it to ask each caller to say their name before it will ring your phone. That's enough to stop practically all automated calling systems.
It's $20 to port your number to Google Voice, but then everything else besides outgoing international calls is paid for by Google spying on you.
https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1065667?hl=en
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Works just as well if you hand the phone to a toddler. They love to chat.
My rights don't need management.
It sounds very much like a scam my wife experienced. I can't figure out what they mean to get out of it but it is not legitimate. We had these calls for weeks, at all hours of the day and night, asking for someone who's never had this number (not in the last few years). On several occasions I asked who are you trying to collect this debt for? And the answer was, The Lending Club. I contacted the Lending Club and was promptly answered by a guy in their fraud department, who was very helpful, and told me they do not employ any debt collection services operating out of India using spoofed caller ID. He said this is fairly common and gave me contact numbers for the FCC and FBI. Unfortunately there's not much that can be done. She ended up changing her Vonage number. I strongly suspect that had I ever asked the question "what do I have to do to make these calls stop?" the answer would be something like "just give us your credit card information and we'll put a one-time charge for (fill in some two-figure number)" It's robodialling with operators who get put on the line when someone appears to answer and they are probably getting paid next to nothing. I can't come up with any other conclusion given the facts in my case. It's possible this is the same..
Sadly, the only way to stop this likely involves pretending you have no bank account, but that you can send a cashier's check, asking for the address where you should send it, and then sending:
beginning with the first one, then escalating the response with each subsequent call. I'm not quite sure how to pull off the last two, but chances are a scammer will stop after about the second or third, and almost certainly after the sixth, so the last two are probably moot anyway.
[Editor's note: Sending almost any of these things through the postal service is illegal. This post does not constitute an endorsement of mailing excrement, animals (living or dead), trojan horses filled with mercenaries, or nuclear armaments through the mail.]
As hilarious as the forwarding suggestions are, if you forward to the FTC it will show up as your number originating, and if you forward to a 900 service you will get the bill.
I work for a phone company in the US. There's basically no way to stop these. When the call comes in, there's no way to know where it came from. Just change your number. You could do some things to try and get off their list but the fact of the matter is, if you're on their list, you're on THE list and this wont be the last problem you'll have. Your number will get sold and re-sold.
Lastly, to get targeted the way you did usually means they got a "hit" on your number... meaning one of their cons worked. If you're not already aware of them ripping you off, you should check your finances carefully to be sure they haven't already gotten some money from you. If they're calling you that much it's because they think you bit before so you'll bite again.
Asterisk is a good solution if you can and don't mind hosting it (or having it hosted somewhere). I set up a simple IVR system within Asterisk that answers the phone and plays a simple message: "I don't take calls from robots, press 'H' for human to prove you are not a robot." If you press 4, then my phones actually ring and then go to voice mail if I don't answer. If you don't press 4, the call gets dropped and I am not bothered. This has eliminated the problem with robocalls for me. I still get an occasional manually dialed polling or sales call. However if someone, even a salesperson, bothers to actually make an effort and dial the phone, I don't mind talking to them, even if only to say that I am not interested. I did white list the local reverse 911 number because that sort of robocall I might want to hear. (For the non-US readers, reverse 911 is a system that allows governmental emergency services to call everyone in a city or neighborhood to play an automated emergency message.)
If they're calling every 10-15 minutes, it's a scam by definition. It's illegal for debt collectors to all that often.
Wait a minute. You're saying that they can call you when *you* don't want them to, and then sue you for *their* wasted time because you didn't want to talk to them? Nice fucked up country you've got there. Here that constitutes misuse of the telephone system and gets them a £5000 fine *for every infraction* at the very least.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
And legal will just take out a court order for the money against you ex parte in many states.
Bullshit. There is no jurisdiction in the land where a civil ex parte will be granted without the other party being able to respond. You will always have to prove you have made good faith efforts to serve the defendant (and no, phone calls aren't proof) before you will be granted ex parte.
I work for a nationwide legal firm specializing in debt collection (not as a lawyer) and I am extremely familiar with the process.
We had a similar problem a few years ago. Although it was not a debt-collection scam, some sort of bot was calling many times/day and all through the night. Really annoying. So we talked to our provider (the local cable company) and they set up an interception service that forces callers to affirm that the call is legitimate by hitting a couple of numbers before the call comes through to us. We have not had a robocall since then. We can whitelist numbers so they don't get challenged, but have not done much of that. We pay perhaps a dollar/month for the service.
No, usually the people on the other end are just poor souls with a lousy job. They are often not the ones running the scam.
Being rude to the call center individual doesn't help. They will still call you back. If you hang up on them they will just call the next person on the list.
The scammers' big investment is in the human time at the call center. Take all the human time you can to make the calls expensive. Ask them questions about the details of the fake bill. Describe how someone already called but they described it differently and ask them to tell you why it is different. Or tell them stories about your pet, your days in school, describe your favorite youtube videos, talk about politics, or (as was posted above) try to sell them your own products. Sometimes you can even try the line that you need to do something (check on the baby, go to the bathroom, call on the other line, etc) and put the phone down for five minutes as they wait on the line.
Keep them on the phone and tie up their resources. If they are busy talking to you (who know the scam) then they aren't calling the more vulnerable people. If you can keep a rep on the phone for a half hour or an hour, that might be twenty other people they don't call.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
What is missing here is a lot of information, who is making the claim, where are they from, what are they claiming it is for. When I have had the odd nuisance call, I have gone the route of attempting to get as much information as possible, when a view of enabling prosecution. Names (person making the call, who they work for, managers name), contact numbers, addresses, everything I can get, oddly enough they always hang up before I can get enough info and I don't hear from them again ;). Dishonest people are always nervous about all sorts of honey pots.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen